Damn after reading this once again I'm eager to go travelling! :]
I took a few trips abroad back when I was in college and then afterwards - and they were a great experience. I think my heart has always been tempted to go back, but fears always held me back - mainly the fear of spending too much money, or having the dreaded "blank spot" on my resume. Vicki and I had been talking about having a long travel trip across Thailand, India, and some other countries as a long honeymoon - but that idea kind of fell to the wayside (not sure why, but most likely got scared of the expenses).
Even traveling cheaply, the expenses are high (book says $1k/month, multiplied by two for a year that is $24k!) but what is the purpose of money, anyway? The approach Potts took is you work just to fund your next trip, or to fund your life :] So his approach is work in the US and save up some money, then go spend it on a vagabonding trip... rinse/repeat. Another interesting idea from Potts was there's no point to being money-rich if you're time-free - and vagabonding is exactly that, buying yourself time to notice/enjoy the wide world around us.
The book itself wasn't all that "useful", but it was inspiring at a time where I needed a little inspiration. It had a lot of useful references to other books about travel that I'd like to check out. But one idea he had in the book that I liked about traveling was being unstructured about it - having the freedom to stay in a place for a while if you wanted to, or travel to a random town just because you hadn't heard of its name before - being open to chance.
It seems like now is the perfect time in my life for a long-term trip. I have money saved and am near a turning point in life. The only thing holding me back is the fear that the $24k spent on such a trip would be better spent on a down payment for a house. Timing-wise, I'd like to spend some time traveling (or staying in one place) in the US for a while before going anywhere, as there are a lot of interests of mine I'd like to pursue if I had the benefit of time :]
Rating: 1/4 (good for inspiration to go vagabonding)
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Our plans evaporated when the economy slid into recession. I think we got worried about money and wanted to plunk it into a house instead of letting inflation suck it out of our bank account. But that is a decision based on fear. What will you regret more: not traveling/vagabonding (and experiencing all the growth involved in such a trip), or not protecting our money as well as possible (which depends largely on our luck in guessing what will keep the value in the money)?
ReplyDeleteThe references and the quotes were by far the best things about this book! I want to reread just the quotes in the margins :]